While the movie continued playing, my thoughts drifted far away, yet the comfortable couch and late hour allowed me to drift into sleep despite my perturbed state of mind. I could hear the screaming and pleading of a young enemy soldier, lying helpless out in no man’s land. I could see his insides poking out through his torso, charred and bloodied flesh everywhere that I looked; he was mangled beyond recognition, but unable to escape from a hellish consciousness.
There were Treysyl soldiers alongside me laughing at the fallen Pelsyl for crying for his mother, with some throwing pebbles at him. It was needlessly cruel; the decent thing to do was to end his misery. From my angle, I had a clean shot at his head, and then I wouldn’t have to hear those terrible, howling screams any longer. I lined up my sights with his temples, intending to be clean and surgical. I wanted it to be over in a second, a merciful end at last.
It’s what I’d want someone to do for me, if I was in such misery. He’s been there for hours already, and nobody’s done a damn thing.
Right as my finger curled around the trigger, a certainty flashed through my mind out of nowhere: that a bullet to the brain would kill a person permanently, denying them from the afterlife. I couldn’t stop myself in time, and I flinched back as it cleaved through his skull, perfectly. It felt like all of this had happened before, though my consciousness was too blurry to question it. My eyes locked onto the bloody, oozing wound with brain matter ravaged inside.
Ah, well it’s just a Pelsyl. They’re a lot of savages and murderers, and it’s not like I should care what happens to them. I hate them, don’t I?
After the shot rolled through the corpse’s temple, in and out in a moment, the head rolled toward me with lifeless eyes. My heart stopped in my tracks as I realized the face was unmistakably Keensty, his golden eyes dead and still. Oh fuck, I remembered now; he had asked me for mercy, but I would’ve never shot my best friend. What the fuck had I done, when I knew he was never coming back if I pulled the trigger? He wasn’t a Pelsyl!
“No!” I screamed, white-hot grief washing over me. I murdered my best friend, forever. “Keensty. Keensty!”
I snapped upright on Sagua’s couch bellowing his name, rocked by the crystal clear memory of my dream; the alien surroundings did little to comfort me. The Watcher looked at me with concern, but the words she was saying didn’t register. I could picture Keensty’s cold dead eyes looking at me, and still feel the murder weapon sitting like a boulder in my hands; I could see the moment I’d hesitated before rushing off to battle, when he’d begged me for mercy. The screams were so loud, all I could hear, cursing myself for what I’d done.
Sagua pulled me into her arms, trying to comfort me. “Lucren, it’s okay. I’m right here. Come back to me…it was only a dream.”
I yipped in anguish and buried my face in her sleeve; I couldn’t stop shaking, wracked by fitful sobs. The cascade of memories and mental imagery was unbearable, as it painted a neat picture of how I murdered an innocent boy. My mercy almost took Keensty, my closest friend, from the afterlife as well. The blood and guts asked me how I could do such a thing. I wouldn’t have cared back then. Sagua was right; we would’ve aimed for the head! I was horrible, and yet I was making her deal with my breakdown?
I pulled out of the human’s arms, and leapt off of the couch with shame. “I’m so sorry. You don’t have to deal with my shit; you shouldn’t. You were a wonderful host, and I’m ruining everything. I have to go.”
“Lucren…nothing is ruined. I want to support you; you don’t have to go anywhere,” Sagua pleaded.
“What you wanted was a positive experience with an Arata, and I’m subjecting you to this? This isn’t what you want, but you’re nice, so I know you’d help. I’m in no state to be good company. Please, send me back! Please, I can’t stay here...”
The Watcher reached out to caress my face, her eyes glimmering with pity. “I’d rather hold you until the demons go away, but if you insist on fighting them alone, I’ll honor your request. You’re not a prisoner here. I just don’t want you to think I’m upset with or judging you in any way. I hope you feel better, Lucren, and I will be checking in on you first thing tomorrow.”
Sagua retracted her smooth hand from my fur, and warped me back to my room in an instant. I collapsed onto the floor and sobbed, fighting with the traces of the dream circling in my head. If I had taken Keensty’s second life away from him, I don’t think I could’ve lived with myself. All it would’ve taken was finding the fortitude to honor his request. The exact memory of pulling the trigger burned in my brain, forcing me to see the bullet go through the Pelsyl’s head in slow motion.
That was a life that I took forever, and that one wasn’t hate. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I wish I could take it back, or at least…forget!
The cloud of shame and horror that I felt toward myself was self-feeding, and I thought it might last forever. It took an inscrutable amount of time, but the overwhelming feelings began to ebb away once I was all cried out. The guilt lingered, though it eased enough that I could pick myself off of the floor. I collected myself enough to consider how royally I’d fucked up my visit with Sagua, and a groan escaped from my lips.
I rubbed my forehead and pictured how I’d left, seeming like a nutcase and turning down her inexplicable kindness. Fuck. I made our time together all about me, and she had to put up with all of those freakouts. She must think I’m loony. Sagua really tried to connect, but at this point, why bother to talk to me?
“Hey, Lucren,” a conspiratorial whisper came through my telepathic network, and I breathed a dozen sighs of relief that I lived in the reality where Keensty was alive and well. “I finished mapping out the inside of a spaceship, after combing through the entire hangar bay. We just have to figure out what all of those buttons do and where it’s controlled by the nanobots; I mean, it’s them. I’m sure it is.”
I tried to focus, massaging my temples. “Then how are we supposed to fly them?”
“The aliens must have training to teach that exact thing, and we need to learn some of their language. I mean, we have a literal eternity. Wait, shit, it’s late and you’re still up. Did I ruin your alone time with Sagua?”
“No, I already left her place. The movie didn’t go well.”
“Whoa, really? That’s a shame, buddy. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Of course it wouldn’t go well. Look at her, being a literal perfect alien, and look at me. This entire idea of hanging out with her is ludicrous, without you trying to make me read into her kindness as being romantically interested. You’re seeing what you want to see; you were a lot more invested in this than me.”
“Hey, don’t get worked up at me. You sound awfully upset for someone who ‘didn’t care.’ Maybe Keensty can help you fix this, huh? I hear he’s a fabulous wingman. I’m sure there’s nothing that’s done that can’t be undone.”
“You didn’t hear what I said, Keensty. I made a total ass of myself, then ran away with my tail between my legs. I went off the deep end! It was just all too much. I can’t fucking be normal, let alone charming. I chased off the only person I feel like I can trust…other than you, of course.”
Keensty made a shushing noise over the telepathic link. “We did all just die, Lucren. I’m sure it isn’t as bad as you think; she sees lots of bad reactions, I bet, and it hasn’t been that long. Why don’t you see if she would be willing to forgive whatever this outburst is tomorrow? It can’t make it worse to try. I’m here for you either way. What…happened?”
“Keensty, I could’ve killed you forever! That’s why I freaked out.” I decided to omit the bit about permanently murdering a Pelsyl, since I didn’t feel like my best friend would be sympathetic. Sagua was the only one who understood that part. “Sagua told me that if the brain is damaged, they can’t resurrect people. That’s the one body part that’s irreplaceable. If I’d worked up the stomach to put a bullet through your head…you wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be all alone, and I’d have killed you!”
“Aw, Lucren; I’m touched that you care so much, but that didn’t happen. I’m really happy then, if it doesn’t go without saying! You wimping out with the mercy kill shit is the reason I’m here. That’s why I’m alive, because another guy might’ve done what I asked. I owe you my life, you freaking softie!”
“You don’t owe me for not blowing your head off! Keensty, I almost did. What if? What about…all of the other people who weren’t an almost? All of those lives: I couldn’t live with it being one of the people I cared about, so how could anyone else be expected to? It’s so fucked!”
Keensty went silent for a moment. “And how do you propose we fix it?”
“The aliens could fix everything with a snap of their fingers, but Sagua calls that being a dictator. Does it even matter if you save lives? The Treysyl don’t get destroyed, Hrothl’s stopped from being a rotten bastard, and we all live on a peaceful world.”
“If their technology does that much, that’s why we have to bring it back. We could make that happen where they won’t. Think of what it could do for us and the Treysyl! It could help people live longer in their original bodies, without being separated from our home. Don’t you think we deserved to know all of this?”
“Of course I do. Our own people are fucking using us, and I trusted them, Keensty! I’m a murderer because of Hrothl! Still, Sagua’s millions of years old, so I have to wonder if she doesn’t have more wisdom than us. Like, maybe she knows better. She sees the future, and that means she could spot consequences I don’t.”
“Hold up. What do you mean she sees the future?!”
“It’s nothing. What Sagua said to me was harmless, and she can’t help it. It is what it is. We shouldn’t talk about it, I mean, that was said in confidence. I fucked up by mentioning it.”
“Okay, no. Nuh-uh. Sagua can see what’s going to happen ahead of time, and you don’t think that makes escaping more complicated? That’s absolutely something I need to know if I’m planning an escape! Whose side are you on?”
I sighed in exasperation. “Yours, Keensty. Ours! I don’t know what that means anymore. Sagua’s a good person, and she’s trying to help. We wouldn’t be alive without her. I don’t want to betray her trust or…completely screw her over.”
“Fuck, you’re so whipped. If you believe what you just said about the lives lost because they haven’t done squat on Teska, then you can’t stay here. Why the fuck would you want to?”
The thought of Sagua shuttering the program, and what would happen to everyone up here, weighed on me; that was a topic I’d kept entirely to myself. “I’ve had a hard time with everything just…hitting me. I don’t know that I’m ready to go back to a fraudulent world that fights for stupidity.”
“Lucren. You’re hiding something. Spill!”
“I don’t know that much. It’s all complicated and tough to make sense of, but trust me, the Watcher program’s in a bad way. We don’t want to push it off the edge. The last thing we need is to piss such powerful aliens off, with how effortlessly they could handle us.”
“What the fuck did she tell you? Lucren!!! I’m going to come over there right now, first off, to take your mind off of things, and secondly, to wrangle the whole truth out of you. You’re going to look me in the eye and give it to me straight.”
I threw up my hands as Keensty disconnected from the chat; the last thing I wanted, after the night I’d had and the guilt-inducing revelation I’d uncovered, was to get into it with my best friend now. If what Sagua told me about shutting down the Arata program got out, there could be pandemonium—the very thing that might make them pull the plug at once! Besides, it was better for Keensty not to have that hanging over his head, but it was big reason why I’d really fucked it by ensuring that Sagua didn’t like me. I couldn’t have been less charming if I tried.
Within a minute, an out-of-breath Treysyl pounded on my door. “Lucren, it’s your buddy boy! You’re not gonna betray your whole people just because Hrothl did one shady operation, huh? We’ve got a job to do.”
“Look, I’ve had a long night. Can we please have this conversation tomorrow?” I called out.
Keensty ignored me, continuing along with his rambling. “For starters, we have to figure out which way in that deep, dark abyss leads to Teska. We reconcile you and Sagua, maybe she points it out to you while stargazing, huh? Gotta pull your weight. Has she told you something about the future—”
I flung open the door and pulled him in by the shirt collar, clamping a paw over his mouth. “Not so loud! Are you fucking crazy? What do you think happens if the Watchers catch on? You’re a smart guy! You don’t need me to tell you!”
“That’s the whole reason you’ve been distracting Sagua. Except I find out you’ve been omitting things from me, for her. Makes a guy wonder where your loyalties lie. Where you really wanna be.”
“I hate home and that old life I wasted! My loyalties are that I don’t fucking have any, not anymore. Everything I ever knew and everyone I ever loved betrayed or abandoned me! Is that what you wanted to hear, Keensty? Do you want to leave me too?!”
Keensty took a step back as I rounded on him. “No, Lucren. I’m your friend. That’s the entire reason I’m confronting you to your face. We’ve just needed to be honest with each other. You’re being very erratic, and if this is how you were acting, I can see why you put Sagua off.”
“Fucking thanks a lot! You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. I ruin…everything! Your escape would go far better without me. I’m a liability, and if the Watchers had any fucking clue what they were doing, well then, I never should’ve been brought back!”
Keensty stared at me with open concern, as tears dripped from my eyes, before wrapping me in a hug. “Hey, that’s not true. I…I’m sorry, buddy. I won’t push you tonight. We don’t have to rush out of here, because I want to do this with my best friend. You can work through your shit, okay? I’ll figure shit out, and you do what you can. It’s obvious Sagua…doesn’t hate you. And neither do I.”
“No, you have to rush out of here if you’re gonna go, Keensty! I…I’ll help you, whatever I decide to do. Better you than Hrothl. I’ll try to make it up to Sagua tomorrow, and I’ll be your eyes and ears. Promise.”
“Lucren, you don’t have to. It’s okay. It’s not every day an alien falls for you; I can see why you’d catch feelings.”
I hissed, extending my frills. “Fuck, not this again! It’s not like that. I’m trying to help you, you dumb—”
There was another knock on my door, which caused both Keensty and I to fall into an alarmed silence. Was it Sagua coming to check on me? It wasn’t the morning yet, or at least, I didn’t think it was, but maybe she’d come by early—in person, no less! In that case, I’d be fortunate that she would still care or so much as speak to me; my visit had given her nothing but disappointment. I wouldn’t have blamed her for writing Aratas off and quitting the program. She could’ve gone anywhere in the multiverse.
I scurried to the door, trying to smooth out my shirt and hide my tears. “One second! I’m coming.”
“Hey! You didn’t jump to like that for me,” Keensty grumbled.
I didn’t dare to leave the alien waiting for another moment; I mean, who else could it be? A warm excitement flooded my heart, as I opened the door and prepared to beg for a second chance. The words lodged in my throat, when I realized that it wasn’t Sagua banging on the entryway after all. Keensty and I both gaped in shock at the cowled Pelsyl, who pushed his way inside before I could demand to know what he wanted.
“What the fuck?!” My best friend dropped into a fighting stance, but the intruder flung a makeshift throwing knife toward him; it clipped off his cheek fur with worrying precision. “Scum! Get the fuck out of here! Wait…Lucren, you didn’t invite this rodent, did you?!”
I scoffed. “No! Of course not.”
The Pelsyl flashed more throwing knives, from inside of his cloak. “Neither of you make a move. The next one I throw isn’t going to clip you. I know you’re trying to escape this station. You’re going to loop me in on everything, and I’m catching a ride with you.”
“What?! Why the fuck would we ever work with you?” Keensty spat.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll tell the aliens everything. We can see how that turns out for you.”
The two of us gawked at the Pelsyl intruder, who somehow knew about our escape plans and had gotten over to the Treysyl side of the station; he’d found my room, for crying out loud! After decades spent resenting his people, teaming up with an enemy assassin wasn’t something I had any desire to do. He was living up to the conniving, scheming reputation that his race had acquired, which wasn’t making him seem trustworthy,
However, the idea of Sagua learning about my plotting made my blood run far colder. That was one possibility that I couldn’t let happen, both to have any hope of getting out of here and to keep the Watcher program afloat long enough for us to try.
A/N - 11! After a nightmare about killing Keensty, Lucren runs off on Sagua, and he’s embarrassed after about how he can’t act normal. His best friend tries to reassure him, but is worried by a lot of what he learns about human precog. Lucren admits when confronted that he hates home and feels betrayed by everyone he loves, which erased his loyalties. Before the heart-to-heart can finish, a Pelsyl arrives and demands to join the escape operation…much to Keensty’s chagrin.
What do you think of Keensty’s attitudes about escaping and about Lucren? How will this Pelsyl’s arrival change things, and is it even possible for Treysyl and Pelsyl to work together?
As always, thank you for reading and supporting!